Music Mosaic: Atlas--Battles

Our senses don’t operate in complete independence from each other. Listening to a song can evoke thoughts, images, or even smells or tastes.  Most often when I hear a piece of music for the first time, I immediately form some kind of impression or a story that returns whenever I hear it again. One of these songs was Battles’ “Atlas, ” a mostly-instrumental piece of experimental rock with some gibberish-sounding vocal-work. It’s worth a listen:

"Atlas" is an adventure. That was the impression, pure and simple. It's a fun song, but an adventurous one. It begins with a simple but catchy beat, and the first section of the song is just one instrument building on another. Before a minute passes, the chant begins like a call to adventure. To me it always seemed like an invitation to take a break from the monotony to participate in something a little more death-defying. And that’s just what it does; over the course of its seven-minute run it creates a nice journey of falls and crescendos.

And so we meet our hero. He was around long before I was consciously aware, popping in and out of existence every time I gave the song a listen, as it often happen. The eight images I put together were my best attempt to go along for the ride, to put visually what I imagined his world—and his story—must be like.

It begins (1) with a simple portrait of the hero himself, at home, but with a burning desire for adventure. For a moment he is caught between two worlds, before yielding to the call and setting off on his quest. He reaches the point of no return (2, about the point 1:15 in the song), looking ahead into the unknown and realizing how far he needs to go to get what he wants.

So he jumps right in. I depicted this phase of his adventure as a sort of Hercules-like labors (3 & 4) he needs to undergo to prepare himself for the final challenge. This is the longest stretch of the adventure. 

He struggles against seeming impossibility but doesn’t cave under the weight, until at last he faces the final showdown with what it is he fears (5, about point 5:30).

He is beaten and almost defeated, but as he falls he discovers faith and strength he hadn’t been aware of (6). 

In doing so, he is transformed and conquers his fears and obstacles (7). At last, he makes his journey home (8), having gained his prize and becoming changed in the process.

Its simple jungle-beat almost never takes a break, keeping the song constantly bouncing forward. The journey is there. To be honest, I let myself get a little carried away with the theme. This kind of adventure was always much more lighthearted in my mind than it ended up on paper. By the end, it had evolved into something a little more epic-looking than I really wanted. But with art as well as these kinds of adventures, we don’t always get what we expect but usually learn even more about ourselves in the process.